AIIA FOIA Series: Updated I-526E Inventory Statistics for May 2026

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Once again, AIIA has more information to share about what’s happening with backlogs and processing in all post-RIA EB-5 categories. Just this September, USCIS responded to our FOIA request for detail on I-526 and I-526E receipts, approvals, and denials by country, TEA category, and filing date through May 31, 2026. AIIA is grateful to Alexandra George của Văn phòng Luật sư Galati để dẫn dắt nỗ lực kiện tụng theo Đạo luật Tự do Thông tin (FOIA) chống lại USCIS nhằm thu thập dữ liệu này.

As usual, the agency did not hand over the relevant data without a fight. As soon as the lawsuit for the data we used for this blog concluded, we had to immediately file yet another one for the next batch of data. As a nonprofit, we severely lack the funds to continue our valuable work without the support from the investor community. Obtaining this data and analyzing this costs us significant resources, and we ask that if you find our work useful and important in your decision making process, please consider Trở thành thành viên hoặc quyên góp cho chúng tôi. Nếu bạn không thể quyên góp, bạn có thể giúp chúng tôi bằng cách nói với các nhà đầu tư và các bên liên quan trong ngành rằng đăng ký danh sách gửi thư của chúng tôi.

Tính minh bạch cho cộng đồng EB-5 nên là ưu tiên quan trọng đối với mọi bên liên quan trong lĩnh vực EB-5.

Our latest FOIA data through May 31, 2026 is crucial because it tells us how USCIS was processing the I-526E inventory in 2025 and 2026– which priority dates, TEA categories, and countries were getting approvals and denials, and which were left pending.

The data provided by USCIS to AIIA is the most complete post-RIA I-526(E) report to date because (1) the report provides receipts by month, which is important for showing trends, and (2) the report provides data that USCIS queried recently, in July 2026. The query date is important, because USCIS takes time to enter receipts into the database. The report that USCIS provided to AIIA states that 19,179 petitions (i.e., I-526 and I-526E) were filed in total between April 2022 and May 2026.

Problems in USCIS’s Data Collection Process

USCIS’s data set continues to show that there are no I-526E petitions or adjudications coming from the Infrastructure category, despite well-documented evidence to the contrary from other sources that we have already addressed in our previous FOIA blog. AIIA and our legal counsel are actively communicating with the agency to see if such omissions in their data collection process can be avoided in their future data releases.

May 2026 FOIA Data and Analysis

AIIA’s May 2026 FOIA request sought a report of all I-526 and I-526E Immigrant Petitions filed with USCIS, per month, from April 1, 2022 to May 31, 2026, further itemized by visa set aside category and by country for ten countries and the rest of the world. We also requested a report of all I-526 and I-526E approvals and denials for the same dates, countries, and categories. The following list, tables, and charts compile and analyze the data provided by USCIS. (AIIA Members may request a full copy of government responses to AIIA FOIA requests by reaching out to us through our Biểu mẫu liên hệ.)

Total number of I-526/I-526E petitions filed between April 1, 2022 and May 31, 2026 by TEA category and country of chargeability

This above chart displays two firsts in the post-RIA world:

1) The sum of post-RIA petitions from Mainland China has dropped below 50% of all post-RIA EB-5 petitions across the world, reflecting a gradually cooling Chinese market while petitions from the second largest EB-5 market–India remains robust (between August 2025 and May 2026 there were only 2,383 new I-526/E petitions from Mainland China compared to 2,083 new petitions from India).

2) Total petitions in the Rural category have surpassed that of the High Unemployment category for the first time. This is potentially the downstream effect of the EB-5 community learning of the discrepancies between the adjudication speeds of these two categories.

Meanwhile, the charts below reflect the adjudication (including both approval and denial) data of those same petitions:

I-526/I-526E petitions adjudicated (approvals+denials) as of May 31, 2026 by TEA category and country of chargeability

Total I-526/I-526E Receipts, Approvals, and Denials as of May 31, 2026, by TEA

I-526/I-526E Denial Rate by Country for petitions Adjudicated as of May 31, 2026

Xu hướng nhu cầu theo loại TEA

Xu hướng nộp đơn I-526/I-526E sau RIA trên toàn cầu, theo các danh mục dự trữ visa

Đơn xin I-526/I-526E từ Trung Quốc đại lục: So sánh giữa khu vực nông thôn và khu vực có tỷ lệ thất nghiệp cao

Đơn xin I-526/I-526E từ Ấn Độ: So sánh giữa khu vực nông thôn và khu vực có tỷ lệ thất nghiệp cao

Rural vs High Unemployment I-526/I-526E Filings from Vietnam

Đơn xin I-526/I-526E từ Hàn Quốc: So sánh giữa khu vực nông thôn và khu vực có tỷ lệ thất nghiệp cao

Đơn xin I-526/I-526E từ Đài Loan trong bối cảnh tỷ lệ thất nghiệp cao ở khu vực nông thôn

Comparing the percentage of filed I-526/E Adjudicated as of May 2026 (India, China and All countries)

Bằng cách tổng hợp tất cả dữ liệu này, chúng ta có thể hiểu rõ hơn về cách USCIS ưu tiên xử lý hồ sơ trong các nhóm được ưu tiên và giữa các quốc gia.

Of the three major issues AIIA has identified in our last analysis, USCIS seems to have also recognized them and is working on them with varying degrees of success.

1) Slow adjudication speed for High Unemployment (HUA) and differing approval rate: As we have pointed out in our analysis of the July 2025 dataset, I-526E adjudications from the HUA category took up only 16% of all adjudications (which meant that only 8% of the HUA I-526Es were adjudicated compared to Rural’s 45% adjudication rate). This issue has been somewhat improved throughout the last year, as we compared the previous dataset with this one we found, more than 30% of adjudications between July 2025 and May 2026 to be HUA petitions.

One caveat of this positive development is that this boost in efficiency is accompanied by a noticeable increase in HUA cases being denied as well. HUA I-526Es only have a 80% approval rate, compared to the 92% approval rate from Rural (when such a large discrepancy was nowhere to be found in the July 2025 data).

2) Unfair distribution of adjudications between countries: As noted in our previous article, USCIS is adjudicating Indian born petitioners at a higher rate compared to Chinese, especially in the HUA category. It appears USCIS has taken concrete steps to course correct on that: in the past year they adjudicated more than double the HUA petitions from China than from India.

3) Non First in First Out (FIFO) adjudication order: USCIS has been retroactively working on earlier I-526E petitions, especially under the rural category, so that some of these early petitions are no longer left in limbo while later petitions are adjudicated (see chart below). However, the issue of non-FIFO adjudication order is still quite visible under the HUA category, which AIIA implores the agency to address as well.

Estimating Wait Times For Green Card

Everytime we release this data we get a flurry of follow up questions and ‘experts’ will attempt to analyze and opine on the potential wait times for prospective investors. We realize that a significant number of investors from all over the world invested between June and September, 2026 (right after the end of our dataset coverage).

While we cannot say firmly how long the wait time for a person from X country investing in Y category could be, here are some hard truths we want to share for prospective investors. This is our opinion and should not be construed as legal advice:

1. If you are an investor born in any country other than India or China, you are a ROW (Rest of World) investor, your wait time to reach the conditional green card stage is purely dependent on how quickly the government moves to adjudicate your petition and issue you your immigrant visa.
2. If you are born in India or China, no matter which set aside category you invest in, there is a visa backlog to face. How big is this backlog? This blog post contains those facts. How long will it take for the backlog to move? Hard to say, but if anyone claims that an investor from those countries investing today will have their conditional green card “within 2-3 years” is incorrect.
3. The denial rates for post RIA investors is significantly lower than Pre-RIA investors. While this is good news for investors and fundraisers, this means a higher number of visa numbers will go to people in line for the EB-5 green card.

Nhìn về phía trước

With the expiration of the grandfathering clause in the RIA coming up at the end of the month and the EB-5 Regional Center Program facing yet another reauthorization hurdle just a year away, it’s likely that the EB-5 program will have a tumultuous year ahead of us. Regardless of what happens next, AIIA will continue to champion for greater degrees of data and policy transparency on behalf of the entire EB-5 community.

Với tư cách là một tổ chức phi lợi nhuận, AIIA dành nhiều thời gian và nguồn lực để thu thập, phân tích và phổ biến dữ liệu này. Chúng tôi hoàn toàn phụ thuộc vào các khoản đóng góp để duy trì các hoạt động của mình, bao gồm tài trợ cho các vụ kiện theo Đạo luật Tự do Thông tin (FOIA), vận động chính sách và hoạt động hàng ngày. Chúng tôi kêu gọi bất kỳ ai đánh giá cao công việc của chúng tôi trong việc nâng cao tính minh bạch của Chương trình EB-5 hãy xem xét ủng hộ chúng tôi bằng cách Thực hiện một khoản đóng góp hoặc Phí thành viên. Sự ủng hộ của quý vị là vô cùng quan trọng để chúng tôi có thể tiếp tục thúc đẩy tính minh bạch và công bằng trong Chương trình EB-5, mang lại lợi ích cho cả nhà đầu tư và các chuyên gia trong ngành.

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